Abstract [en]

This thesis explores and advances the evolving understanding of service design in service research. The study problematizes the prevailing view of service design as the design of service offerings to improve customer experiences. My work shows that this popular narrative does not adequately account for the situated struggles of actors when doing service design. As such, a more processual, embedded, systemic, and embodied perspective of service design is needed. In response, this thesis draws from the service ecosystems perspective of service-dominant logic, integrating insights from institutional theory, systems theory and design theory, to examine service design from an alternative perspective. This inquiry is supported through empirical inputs from a para-ethnographic study of Experio Lab in Sweden, a qualitative analysis of service design methods, and ‘research through design’ experiments. Through systematically combining these empirical and theoretical inputs, this work challenges the underlying assumptions about service design. Based on the development of alternative assumptions, this thesis builds an extended understanding of service design that unabashedly situates actors and their bodies within the dynamic service ecosystems they seek to design. Through this study, I formulate an extended understanding of service design that is referred to as service ecosystem design. Service ecosystem design is defined as the intentional and collective shaping of social structures, and their physical enactments, in order to facilitate the emergence of cocreated value-in-context. This thesis presents a process model for service ecosystem design that reframes service design from an iterative, linear, and phased process, to an embedded and ongoing feedback loop. This feedback loop involves the processes of reflexivity, through which actors build awareness of existing social structures, and reformation, through which actors’ intentionally reshape social structures toward preferred value cocreation configurations. Based on this alternative view of service design, this research offers a set of design principles and experimental approaches to help practitioners acknowledge and leverage the situated nature of their practice. By extending the understanding of service design, this thesis has implications for broader conversations about design, service, and systems change, and provides a foundation for future research at this intersection.

Abstract [en]

Service design has been hailed for its ability to drive innovation and transformation. As a result, there are growing investments in service design by organizations, governments, and communities around the globe. However, the popular narrative of successfully crafting new service offerings through service design is not fully reflective of the situated struggles actors face in practice. In response, this study builds an alternative understanding of service design, called “service ecosystem design”, which offers a more systemic and contextual perspective of the service design process. In this view, social structures – the shared and entrenched rules, norms, roles, and beliefs of actors – are seen as the central materials of service design. This research offers a process model for how actors can intentionally shape social structures to create lasting change within service systems. In addition, it offers design principles and experimental approaches for bringing this process to life.

Tronvoll, Bård, Professor

Edvardsson, Bo, Professor

Wetter-Edman, Katarina, Lecturer

Mager, Birgit, Professor

KISD, Technical University of Applied Sciences Cologne.

Funder

EU, Horizon 2020, 642116Region Värmland

Note

Illustrations by Erin McPhee

This research has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 642116. It has also received financial support from the Region of Värmland and the Swedish Graduate School of Management and Information Technology (MIT).

List of papers

Vink, Josina

Karlstad University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (starting 2013), Karlstad Business School (from 2013). Karlstad University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (starting 2013), Service Research Center (from 2013).

Vink, Josina

Karlstad University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (starting 2013), Karlstad Business School (from 2013). Karlstad University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (starting 2013), Service Research Center (from 2013). Region Värmland.

Joly, Maíra Prestes

Dipartimento di Design, Politecnico di Milano.

Wetter-Edman, Katarina

Karlstad University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (starting 2013), Service Research Center (from 2013). Karlstad University, Faculty of Economic Sciences, Communication and IT, Service Research Center. FoU i Sörmland.

Tronvoll, Bård

Karlstad University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (starting 2013), Service Research Center (from 2013). Karlstad University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (starting 2013), Karlstad Business School (from 2013). Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences.

Edvardsson, Bo

Karlstad University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (starting 2013), Service Research Center (from 2013).

Abstract [en]

Innovation in healthcare requires changing the institutional arrangements or whatare often referred to as “the rules of the game.” Such a change demands that actorsdo institutional work—intentionally creating, disrupting, and maintaining theentrenched ways of operating within the system. This chapter explores how servicedesign practices contribute to changing the rules of the game in healthcare byintegrating research on service design and institutional work. Based on a literaturereview, five characteristics of service design practices—multidisciplinary, experiential, participatory, experimental, and reflective—are highlighted and linkedto the antecedents of institutional work. Illustrative examples of service designprojects from Experio Lab, an embedded service design group in the Swedishhealthcare system, are used to contextualize the findings. In doing so, this chapterprovides a clear rationale for how service design practices enable innovation inhealthcare and offer insights for healthcare practitioners interested in workingtoward institutional change through service design.

Vink, Josina

Karlstad University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (starting 2013), Karlstad Business School (from 2013). Karlstad University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (starting 2013), Service Research Center (from 2013).

Abstract [en]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze how service design practices reshape mental models to enable innovation. Mental models are actors’ assumptions and beliefs that guide their behavior and interpretation of their environment. Design/methodology/approach: This paper offers a conceptual framework for innovation in service ecosystems through service design that connects the macro view of innovation as changing institutional arrangements with the micro view of innovation as reshaping actors’ mental models. Furthermore, through an 18-month ethnographic study of service design practices in the context of healthcare, how service design practices reshape mental models to enable innovation is investigated. Findings: This research highlights that service design reshapes mental models through the practices of sensing surprise, perceiving multiples and embodying alternatives. This paper delineates the enabling conditions for these practices to occur, such as coaching, diverse participation and supportive physical materials. Research limitations/implications: This study brings forward the underappreciated role of actors’ mental models in innovation. It highlights that innovation in service ecosystems is not simply about actors making changes to their external context but also actors shifting their own assumptions and beliefs. Practical implications: This paper offers insights for service managers and service designers interested in supporting innovation on how to catalyze shifts in actors’ mental models by creating the conditions for specific service design practices. Originality/value: This paper is the first to shed light on the central role of actors’ mental models in innovation and identify the service design practices that reshape mental models.

Blomkvist, Johan

Abstract [en]

Within the discourse connecting design and innovation, there has been a growing emphasis on the importance of cognitive processes in relation to design methods. However, the over-emphasis on cognition fails to clearly identify the triggers of change necessary for service innovation. In response, this article draws on classic American pragmatism and service-dominant logic to highlight the underappreciated role of actors' bodily experiences when using design methods for service innovation. The authors of this paper posit that design methods stage aesthetic disruption, a sensory experience that challenges actors' existing assumptions. In doing so, the use of design methods can lead to destabilizing the habitual action of participating actors, helping them to break free of existing institutions and contribute to service innovation.